Eight California schools districts serving one millions students have been granted waivers from federal No Child Left Behind accountability standards.

School districts including Los Angeles, Oakland and San Francisco are being allowed to follow their own accountability standards for the next year. The eight districts are part of a collaborative effort to take a more well-rounded approach to education. Michael Hanson is Superintendent of the Fresno Unified School District.

“Kids’ attendance rate in kindergarten and first grade matters for their literacy rates for third grade,” Hanson said. “And if we don’t dig into those things now and/or if we wait for the state to get around to doing that, we’re going to lose ground.”

In the past the US Department of Education has only granted waivers on a state-wide basis. California’s request for a waiver was rejected last year.

The eight districts are Los Angeles, Fresno, Long Beach, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco, Sanger, and Santa Ana Unified School Districts. They will measure accountability based on factors such as test scores, attendance, graduation rates and expulsion and suspension statistics. The federal government will evaluate their results in a year.